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JAN 16 1809 

Cooyrigftt Entry 
(U.ASS C^ XXc. No, 



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PV 3. 



THE BOY LINCOLN 



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EASTMAN JOHNSON 

18'24- 190(5 

CONCERNING THE ARTIST. Johnson was born 
in the small town of Lovell, Maine. He was not particu- 
larly studious at school, Init at an early age showed a 
decided bent for drawing. When eighteen, he did some 
good portraits in crayon, and 
his talent developed so rapidly 
that at the age of twenty-one 
we find him established in a 
room of the Capitol at Wash- 
ington, executing portraits of 
many distinguished Ameri- 
cans. From his eighteenth 
year to his eighty-second, 
Johnson accomplished an 
almost incredible amount of 
work, being endowed with 
unfailing good health as well 
as inexhaustible enthusiasm 
and rare singleness of pur- 
pose. The enumeration of his portraits is like a roll-call 
of names familiar in history, literature, finance, states- 
manship, the professions, and society. The list ranges 
from the widow of Alexander Hamilton to Grover Cleve- 
land. After a year in Washington, he spent three in 
Boston, painting portraits; among the distinguished 
people who sat to him were Longfellow, Emerson, and 
Hawthorne. He then went to Europe to study in Diissel- 
dorf, Paris, and at The Hague, where he remained four 

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years. That wizard of the Dutch school of painting, 
Rembrandt, made the deepest impression on him, — so 
deep, indeed, that Johnson's artist friends called him the 
American Rembrandt. With years he developed a strong 
type of genre painting, — strong because it is never 
melodramatic or sentimental. It tells the truth about 
incidents of everyday life, often touched by quiet humor. 
Johnson's art is expressive of a personality of great kindli- 
ness and freedom from all morbid -tendencies. He was a 
patriot in the best sense of the word ; he found inspiration 
in American subjects, which he portrayed to the end of his 
career. The Boy Lincoln was drawn in 1867, and was 
given to Berea College by Mrs. Mary Billings French, 
who purchased it of Mrs. Eastman Johnson. 

CONCERNING THE PICTURE. First of all let 
us enjoy the language of the artist. It tells a story of 
homely comfort, and conveys the feeling that although 
poverty reigns, this boy's life is not sordid or devoid of 
interest. What is it that dignifies and uplifts the narrow 
horizon of life in such surroundings .^ A love of books, a 
reaching out of mind and heart toward the great world 
beyond this cabin. Johnson has given a sense of warmth 
and comfort by contrasting light and shade. The imagina- 
tion of a lover of the fire on the hearth — a true fire- 
worshiper — will be roused at once. He knows the wealth 
of enjoyment, beyond all consideration of rich surround- 
ings, in blazing logs wherein air castles are outlined and 
all the disagreeal)le things of life are in abeyance. He feels 
the beauty of the firelight reflected upon the walls, and its 
fine defiance of heavy shadows. It glorifies them, and the 
golden duskiness is as beautiful in the rough log cabin as in 
a palace. The colors in the original drawing are subdued 
yet warm. The glow of the fire beautifies the old field-stone 
of which the fireplace is built, and lingers with tenderness 
about the form of the boy, till it finds his face and makes 
it the high light and controlling interest in the picture. 

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There is nothing more appealing to a healthy soul than 
the earnest face of a half-grown boy, fraught with latent 
possibilities not only for his own future well-being but for 
that of his fellow-men. The boy sitting in the firelight, 
roughly clad and rouglily housed, is, to paraphrase Burns, 
a king for a' that and a' that, for his face promises some- 
thing of definite purpose for the future. The artist might 
have expressed this for any thoughtful boy developing into 
potential manhood, but it is a vision of Abraham Lincoln 
as a boy that he has evoked, and in response memory 
evokes the past. From the shadows of a hundred years 
emerges another fireside, by which a mother sits holding 
her baby. Nancy Hanks Lincoln is the mother, and the 
tiny human being encircled by her arms is her son Abraham. 
The boy's childhood, lived in unlovely surroundings and 
grinding poverty, passes in review, and the picture makes 
a new and close appeal to our hearts and minds. From 
what source came the boy's strength of character, his 
temperate habits, his tenderness of heart, his reverence, 
and the other sterling qualities which blossomed into a 
type of manhood that has been a blessing to the world .? 

Lincoln came from good old English ancestry trans- 
planted in colonial times to America. Their sturdy 
characteristics lived again in their descendant, enriched 
by his gracious spirit and genius for extracting the good 
from life's experiences. 

In his maturity Lincoln said : " God bless my Mother ! 
all that I am or hope to be, I owe to her !" She died when 
he was eight years old, but she had taught him to read and 
write; the Bible was her text-book. Long years after- 
ward her son read to wounded and dying soldiers from his 
mother's Bible. 

Lincoln's stepmother came as a blessing to the forlorn 
household, especially to Abraham. She encouraged his 
efforts to obtain an education, and became in all ways his 
stanch and well-loved friend. The boy was father of the 
man who wrote the Gettysburg address — a masterpiece 

[3] 



JAN tS IS 



of .siiiiplicily and beauty of literary style, — to have helj)ed 
him (levelo|) his j)o\vers \vas truly its own great reward. 
As we look at the picture what may we not recall of 
Lincoln's wonderful and imique career from childhood to 
the supreme hour in which his life was made the j)rice 
of his |)alri()tism ? 

Sl"(;(;KS'rED QIESTIONS. To what in the picture are you first 
attracted ? I )o you like the l>oy's face ? By what liffht is the boy reading ? 
Do you see tlie great l)laziiig logs on the andirons ? Of what kind of stone 
is the fireplace Ijuilt ? What do you mean hy field-stone ? Why is this boy 
particularly interesting? Did you ever hear of a ])oy who lived in a log 
cabin and early in life worked on a farm, cut wood, and did other heavy 
work? What was his name? Did Lincoln continue to l)e poor and with- 
out education? What do you know about his progress in life? Do you 
think tiic story of his life can be helpful to l)ovs and girls ? It is suggested 
that teachers tell their j)upils about the mountaineers of Kentucky, the 
college at IJerea, and in what ways Lincoln's early life was hke theirs. 

"I have an inexprcvssible desire to live till I can be assured that the 
world is a little better for my having lived in it." Abraham Lincoln 

Lincoln was once riding over the prairie with a party, when they noticed 
a eou])le of fledglings fallen out of the nest, .\fter the party had gone on a 
little distance. Lincoln wheeled, rode back, and replaced the nestUngs. 
When he rejoined the cavalcade, one of the men bantered him about his 
charitable act, saying: 'Why ditl you l)other yourself and delay us about 
such a trifle ? " " My friend," was the response, " I can only say that I feel 
the better for it!" 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass. Nov. 21, 1864. 

Dkar Madam, — I have l)een shown in the files of the War Depart- 
ment a statement of the .Vdjutant-Creneral of Massachusetts that you are 
the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I 
feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should at- 
tempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I can- 
not refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the 
thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father 
may assuage the anguish of your l)ereavement, and leave you only the 
cherished memory of the loved and lo.st, and the .solemn pride that must be 
yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freetlom. 
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraha.\i Lincoln. 
SUGGEST K I) READING 

Abraham Lincoln. A Short History, by John G. Nicolay. New 
York: Century Co. 

Lincoln. Passages from his Speeches and Letters. Introduction by 
Richard Watson Gilder. New York: Century Co. 

The Berea Quarterly, jjublished by Berea College, Berea, Ky. 
Copyright, 1909, by Horace K- Turner Company, Boston. 
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